


the things we were not taught

by bloodoranges



Category: Original Work
Genre: & by sending this link I am also sharing all the fanfics I have bookmarked, I WILL stop ranting in the tags, I am so sorry, I just miss you, I'll read this in a week and feel nauseous but that's okay, I'll write you nicer things in the future, and I'm rusty with writing so I am so sorry, but I hope this means as much to you reading it as it did to me writing it, but I'm too shy to send it over text or email or in the mail, but big oof bc this is not what I wanted to put out for you, letter to a friend, lmaoo sharing ao3 profiles as a symbol for an earned vulnerability, once again, personal, ps: this is not a part of our swap, writing as a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodoranges/pseuds/bloodoranges
Summary: a letter to a friend
Kudos: 3





	the things we were not taught

listen, there are things I want to tell you that i don’t know how to say.

but i will say this:

your heart is a sun

not everything that we’re born into is something that fits. It's like when you get hand-me-downs but sometimes the sleeves have holes and sometimes the hem is too short and sometimes the only shirt you have is one you got three years ago but it’s never really been yours; our lives can be like that. family is like that, our bodies are hand-me-downs, too. & you, you deserve better than you got. finding a space of your own is harsh but it shouldn’t be & I think when you find someplace that is undeniably 100% yours, it’s worth all the work.

you smile quickly, it’s nothing like the moon or the sun. maybe something like a comet’s tail. you smile quickly and easily and it’s everything like the shock of the first fireworks against the warm dark of a summer night. Everything like the workers in public that can’t know you’re having a bad day but the color of their hair reminds you of the blues of cloud hunting on grass-stained sheets. Everything like the upset of equilibrium making your stomach turn and laughs falling out of your mouth, everything like dancing and surprise dips where no one falls.. Everything like the heady, caramelized happiness of spontaneity, of ‘I can't believe that worked’, of shock and awe and appreciation.

you’re not a whim. you are a surprise and you are a delight and you are the kindness in cool corner bricks in the summer and well-worn sweaters in the fall, but you are nothing that is thoughtless. you deserve attention. there is no poetic way to state that without sacrificing meaning and it should be said again: you deserve attention, without begging or pleading or cutting and tucking away parts of yourself. 

this point is just to say, I am sorry I missed your birthday for so many years. I am sorry I stayed up in two different time zones to wish them to someone who had already bruised me like a child carelessly tossing fruit into the grocery cart. this point is just to say, if I could make a voucher for ‘endless happy birthdays’ I would do it in a second, but instead I’ll set my alarm to make sure I don’t miss it again.

you make the world new. you piece together fragments of moments that could put the best of scrapbooks to shame. you see the bones of art instead of just the skin. you notice things and when you do, you notice them deeply, like every time you notice something you’ll lose your senses in the next instant and you have to take everything in you can, to hold on to the reality of something until it slips away. & when things do slip away (a la jane eyre, you are not a ‘machine without feelings’) you’re hard on yourself. I wish you weren’t. I wish your first thought was always that you’re a person and that it’s okay to fall short of your ideal definition of perfection, that the first thought was always kinder and sweeter than it might like to be.

you have the ability to make everything funny. I think it has something to do with that bright laughter that leaps out like bubbles. when I don’t catch the punchline, I’m left wishing I did.

your ability to make the time of parks and playgrounds stretch out like shiny sugar ribbons all the way into our days now. you’re all neon colored glasses and dark makeup and shiny quips. 

I think about us meeting in different places sometimes, but that’s a bit embarrassing to say face to face. I wonder if we exist the same in alternative universes, if we have the same names or faces or number of bones. Are we always friends? Do we always want to be? are you always so artistic? do you always make it seem like the world is your meal? do you always roll your shoulders in when having a body seems more trouble than it’s worth? do you always feel better existing in words and stories and syntax?

listen, there’s so much more i want to say, so many more better ways to say what I’ve said, but that’s a revolving business. I keep orbiting around what I want to say and the best way to actually do so. To put it plainly, I cherish you, I think of you, I think of how wild it is that we’re both possible and in this same world at this same time. It’s hard for me to say most of anything without sounding like a dramatized social media poem account but, I want to say these things anyways. I miss you. why don’t we go to a Waffle House somewhere soon? maybe that’s the best place to make our moments stick to us like flypaper-- let’s go somewhere timeless and wish ourselves sick for more time until we get it, or until we're sick of wishing for it. let's go boldly, bravely, full of hope. here's to you.

**Author's Note:**

> hi (:
> 
> as I mentioned earlier, this is sort of an open letter to my friend, who has inspired me for years and shown me more kindness and love than I feel like I deserve. they are someone who is beautiful, intelligent, resilient, and inspiring to say the least. I haven't written for anyone but myself in such a long while and publishing this is a bit scary but only because I know that I couldn't convey a fraction of what I wanted to and I can only hope that this gives my friend a crumb of what they're worth and how much they mean to me and other people.
> 
> the title is from an interview that Hanya Yanagihara did on "A Little Life", mainly this quote here:
> 
> "I wanted my character Jude to feel to the reader like a self-taught human: someone who had to study and attempt as a young adult the sensations and feelings — trust, love, anger – that are most effectively learned in childhood. One thing he’s never able to master, however, is a sense of abandon; that feeling many of us are able to realise at some point in our lives (however briefly), that our bodies are our own to inhabit and move and use however we’d wish, that they are things meant for utility, but also for pleasure. " (from this interview w/ Tim Adams from The Guardian:
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/26/hanya-yanagihara-i-wanted-everything-turned-up-a-little-too-high-interview-a-little-life )
> 
> but to my friend, (& if anyone reads my note, I hope that it's you) I want to say that you're entitled to affection and attention and care and support. Even though you might not have been around people who teach you that, you should never have to beg for any of these things and I am hopeful that you'll be able to leave your ill-suited hand-me-downs some place safe, but out of the way.


End file.
